Medical implants as such are previously known, and are often used to replace or assist an organ or a function in a mammal body. Some medical implants which may be mentioned by way of example are artificial hip joints, pacemakers, artificial insulin pumps and the like.
As will be understood, some medical implants require, or may be improved by, the ability to receive input, either from the patient or medical personnel attending to the patient. Various methods are known for giving such input to implanted devices. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,186, discloses a system for sending input to an implant via telemetry. In the '186 patent, input can be given as voice commands; if a voice command is successfully recognized by the apparatus, a matching command is then sent by telemetry means to an implantable device in a patient's body.